Adani reduces power supply to Bangladesh by half over pending dues

India’s Adani Power Jharkhand Limited (APJL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Power, has stopped half of its power supply to Bangladesh because of outstanding bills of 846 million dollars, said a local media report on Friday.

Data from Power Grid Bangladesh PLC showed the Adani plant reduced supply on Thursday night, The Daily Star newspaper said. Bangladesh reported a shortfall of more than 1,600 megawatts (MW) on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday as the 1,496 MW plant was now producing 700 MW from a single unit, the newspaper reported. Earlier, the Adani company wrote to the power secretary asking the Bangladesh Power Development Board to clear its outstanding dues by October 30.

The letter, dated October 27, said that if the bills were not paid, the company should be constrained to take remedial action under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) by suspending the power supply on October 31. The company said the PDB had neither provided a letter of credit (LC) for an amount of 170.03 million dollars from Bangladesh Krishi Bank nor cleared the outstanding amount of 846 million dollars. The newspaper quoted a PDB official as saying that they had earlier cleared a portion of previous dues, but since July, Adani had been charging more than the previous months.